Update on work to remove dredge spoil from the Lake St Lucia Estuary mouth

29 Apr 2016

Dear Business Owners, Licensed Operators, Ratepayers and Residents

Good progress is being made by iSimangaliso’s contractor, Cyclone Engineering, to establish their site for removing dredge spoil placed artificially in the mouth of the Lake St Lucia estuary. This is the largest wetland rehabilitation project in Africa and part of iSimangaliso’s efforts towards the hydrological and ecological restoration of the Lake St Lucia system.

The first phase of this work aims to remove a 100 000m3 of dredge spoil (a portion of section A on the figure below). Further funding is available to begin the next phase once progress with section A has been made and performance assessed. The operation will begin at the northern tip of section A and move southwards.

A slab has been laid at the Estuary Beach car park to accommodate the 17 ton generator and other plant. The pumps and pipes for the sand pumping operation have been delivered. Power lines will run from the main car park to the dredge spoil site.

The electricity is needed to power the slurry pumps and the water cannon that will blast the sand into a slurry, which will then be pumped into the inter-tidal zone. The pipes delivering the slurry to the sea will be laid on top of the beach but, buried in areas where vehicles access the beach for boat launching.

Together with iSimangaliso, the contractor is assessing options to source the water for the sand pumping operation, including from the sea and the uMfolozi River side of the estuary. As water levels in the estuary are low and it’s unlikely that there will be significant rain during the winter, using estuary water from the narrows is the last resort.

The testing of the pumping of the sand is expected to commence in May.

The Estuary Beach car park may need to be closed. A turning circle and parking area at Ingwe Beach car park has been re-gravelled should this be the case. Vehicles towing boats will continue to have access to the beach through the Estuary Beach car park for launching. The launch site control manager will be kept abreast of day to day issues that skippers may need to be aware of.

Please can you inform your guests of the operation around the estuary and on the beach, cautioning against exploration of the rehabilitation site.

Although the drought conditions are making the implementation of this project challenging, we look forward to the commencement of this next step in the restoration of South Africa’s most important estuary.

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THE streets of St Lucia are abuzz with excitement following numerous sightings of a resident leopard.

A large male cat has offered townsfolk and visitors alike some fantastic sightings.

Andre Verster was one such resident. Returning from Empangeni at midnight on Thursday Andre and her husband caught sight of something on Beach Road at the Pelikaan Street junction.

Closer inspection revealed a leopard and as they drove slowly behind it, they realised it was stalking a bushbuck, an exercise they watched for 10 minutes.

Earlier the same evening, a large male leopard had been seen chasing a young hippo on the estuary bridge and was spotted again on the road to the Crocodile Centre the next morning.

Many long-time St Lucia residents have stories of tell of leopard sighting in town, but the best to date was when Ski Boat Club Bar Manager Jabu Msezane, whilst closing up, went to switch off the TV in the bar.

Glancing out the louvred window, Jabu met the gaze of a leopard casually lying on a table at which, only hours before, patrons had been enjoying dinner.

Well to sum it up, what flipping good weather for the easter weekend. That being said, the next question is how was the fishing? Fishing wasn’t has good as as hoped but by no means was it bad either. From what I experienced fishing from estuary beach for the 4 days that I was there was plenty of wave garrick to keep adult and kid entertained, they were mainly around the 30cm mark but some rather big ones came out here and there. There was the odd shad here and there, mainly small but the odd size one would come out. I did see some nice skates and some smaller sharks also being landed. The last day I was there a few nice stumpnose came out, both the ones I saw were on chokka baits. That about somes up the fish I caught and saw being caught, but I was told there were some good size pompanoe begin taken by the umfolizi mouth, also was reported that some grunter were also caught there. I never got a chance to fish the Estuary this time, but am hearing some stories that some grunter of size are being caught there too. Camped at Eden park due to crowds at Sugar Loaf, and let me tell you, what a pleasure that Eden park is, nice and quiet. Oh yeah a little tip for the people going for the wave garrik, they are really close inshore, even a small kid can make the cast to where they are biting…just thought I would add that too. Guys the weather was awesome, the seas were clean, winds ver y low, what more could one ask for on an Easter Weekend break hey….

An unbelievable trip to St Lucia this year, the weather was good but the sea was not playing the game with the local rivers down in full flood pouring the muddy water into the sea which resulted in poor fishing conditions, however I did manage a new species to my list – The Sea Barble – as per images in slideshow. This is a beautiful part of the world with amazing wildlife and breath taking scenery.